A Balm for the Soul: Practicing Simple Breath Awareness

by Nina

The Boundary is Fuzzy by Marie Lossky

Well, well, well, we’ve been blogging here for over four years and now I’ve find that while we have often referred to simple breath awareness as a way to trigger the Relaxation Response (see The Relaxation Response and Yoga) and to practice meditation (see Yoga Meditation Techniques), we’ve never actually described how to practice it. So I thought today I would remedy that rather serious omission. After all, this is the practice that helps me get back to sleep when I’m awake in the middle of the night and makes my Savasana and Legs Up the Wall poses profound relaxation practices.

I’ll start by comparing simple breath awareness to pranayama (breath control). Simple breath awareness is a practice of observing your breath without changing it. With pranayama, you intentionally change your breathing patterns, by making your inhalations and/or exhalations longer, holding your breath, or by breathing in a special fashion (such as humming, alternating nostrils, and so on), which has a potentially stronger affect on your nervous system (see Pranayama: A Powerful Key to Your Nervous System). With simple breath awareness, you just watch your natural breathing patterns, which is both very effective and completely safe. 

Breath awareness can be used in two different ways. The first is as a stress management technique. Ten to 20 minutes of simple breath awareness will trigger the Relaxation Response, quieting both your nervous system and your mind. And even a few minutes of practice can help center you or head off a spike in your stress levels. The second is as a meditation technique.

Whether you are practicing for stress management or as a form of meditation, the way you practice will depend on your location and position. If you’re going to practice as meditation, see Yoga Meditation Techniques for options for location, position, and timings. See the end of this post for information on choosing a focus, as this applies to both forms. This post provides information about location and positions for stress management. At the end of the post, I’ll provide information on choosing a focus for both forms of practicing.

Choosing Your Location

You don’t need a special location to practice breath awareness. As long as there is a quiet spot for you to sit—whether on the floor, out in nature, or on a chair—you can practice. You can also practice breath awareness while you are doing your favorite restorative pose or even while you are in bed as a way to soothe yourself to sleep (or back to sleep if you are awake in the middle of the night).

And when you’re traveling or are stuck somewhere busy and noisy, such at your office or on a train or airplane (yes, I’ve done that), you can practice there, too. It’s more challenging to practice when there are distractions or you are in a public place, but it is still an effective way to calm yourself in the middle of a hectic day.

Choosing Your Position

The position you choose will depend on your location. You have the most options in a house, where you can practice in a yoga sitting pose, sitting on a chair, in a restorative pose, or lying in or on your bed. Obviously, if you are at work or some other public place, you may have to limit yourself to sitting on a chair.

Sitting. Our recommended positions for seated breath awareness are Seated Crossed Legs and Hero pose (although a few people are comfortable enough in Half Lotus or even Full Lotus to practice breath awareness in those poses). 

In his post Learning to Sit on the Floor, Baxter described how you can use props to get comfortable in these poses. 

For people who can’t get comfortable on the floor or if the current setting doesn’t allow it, sitting on a chair is always an option. But rather than leaning against the back of the chair and slumping, sit on the front edge of the chair with your feet flat on the floor (if you are short, you might need to put a prop under them or if your legs are long you might need to put some padding on the chair seat) and your spine in its natural curves and your head in line with your spine. Obviously someone with physical disabilities who is in a wheelchair can practice breath awareness in whatever position they are able to take, in whatever chair they happen to be.

Restorative yoga poses. You can practice breath awareness in any restorative yoga pose that you find comfortable, as well as in gentle supported inverted poses (see All About Supported Inversions), such as Legs Up the Wall pose. We especially recommend Reclined Cobbler’s pose and Supported Savasana, if those poses are comfortable for you. I, myself, have found the combination of Legs Up the Wall with breath awareness to be extremely powerful.

If you’re someone who tends to be anxious and lying on your back makes you feel vulnerable or if you can't lie on your back for any reason, Supported Child’s pose or a Side-Lying Savasana are good alternatives. Both will allow you to bring awareness to your breath in your back body, which can be more relaxing for anxious people. 

In bed. You can practice breath awareness under the covers in your bed, in your customary sleeping position. This is a good way to improve your sleep because you will fall asleep in more relaxed state or to get back to sleep if you wake in the middle of the night (see Yoga You Can Do In Bed). Depending on what’s most comfortable for you, practice either on your back with your head supported by a pillow or lying on your side, with a pillow between your legs.

Standing. If you just want to center yourself—or help head off a spike in stress—you can practice breath awareness any time and any where in Mountain pose (Tadasana). This position is best for a short session of breath awareness, as standing still for 10 to 20 minutes is very challenging. But it’s excellent for a quick fix!

Choosing Your Focus

So what does it mean to bring your awareness to your breath? There are actually many options as you explore either the quality of your breath or the way your breath moves in your body. Try out the various techniques listed below to find one that engages your attention and also that doesn’t make you feel anxious about your breathing. As you observe your breath, consciously refrain from changing it. You may notice, however, as time goes on, that your breathing patterns may change on their own because you are relaxing more and more.

Feeling your body respond to your breath. For beginners, probably the easiest way to observe the breath is to watch the dramatic way your body moves as your lungs expand and shrink. As you inhale and exhale, you can watch your belly rise and fall, your chest expand and shrink back, or your ribs move out to the sides and back again. In positions where you are lying on your side or are prone (like Child’s pose), an interesting option is to feel your back expand and fall back with your breath, and this may be more soothing for those who tend to be anxious.

Sound. If it is quiet enough, you can focus on listening to the internal sounds you hear as you breath in and out. 

Feeling your breath. The best way to “feel” your actual breath is to bring awareness to the nostrils, sensing the air flowing in and out of them. You can also notice the quality of the breath moving in and out of your lungs. Is it smooth or rough? Relaxed or forced? Is your exhalation or inhalation longer? Or are they the same? 

As you watch your breath, be sure to maintain a non-judgmental attitude about your ability to concentrate. If you want to trigger the Relaxation Response, continue practicing for 10 to 20 minutes. If you just want to center yourself, a shorter period of time will be effective, even for just one minute. If you practicing as a form of meditation, see Yoga Meditation Techniques.

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No Control: Watching Your Breath As It Is During Asana

by Jill Satterfield

The Gust of Wind by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

As most yogis know, the breath is a most nuanced and dimensional reflection of our minds. Our breath can be an intimate guide to our psyches, and observing its movements and patterns is a revealing and direct path to understanding our most subtle behavior and disposition. Whether we watch our breath or manipulate it can mean the difference between insights or cover up—and only by practicing both can we surely know for ourselves.

Controlling and Manipulating vs. Letting Go and Observing 

There are many reasons to utilize breath techniques when practicing asana: it deepens a shallow breath, calms the nervous system and mind, and may keep an otherwise wandering mind in check and in the body. But just like the Buddhist parable of a man who constructs a raft to cross over a river and then continues to carry the raft overhead on dry land, it’s as important to be able to utilize a technique as much as it is to be able to let it go. 

Easier said than done. Once we are comfortable utilizing a technique, it becomes a friend and a companion on our path towards being more peaceful, calm, steady, kind. A technique trains the mind to stay on something, such as in meditation, when we watch the natural rhythm of breath to train or tame the wandering mind. So asking this familiar friend not to accompany us can be quite difficult because it has become a habit—skillful, but a habit nonetheless—and letting it go can be wrought with emotions of all kinds. A crutch is a crutch and attachment is attachment, and anything that becomes unconsciously habitual is not liberating; it can act as a shield against seeing what is naturally, without any kind of manipulation or conscious control. We can’t see things as they are if we are constantly fiddling, manipulating, fixing or changing them. As we practice to become more and more free of unconscious patterns, it is an important step in spiritual maturation to examine how we practice, and why. For any technique can keep us contentedly on the surface by enabling us to steer the ship of the mind, rather than observing its path when let loose in the uncharted waters of the unconscious. 

It can radically change a yoga asana practice to be a passive observer of your breath, rather than in any kind of control. In my experience, asking students to let go of a beloved breath technique can illicit everything from anger to sadness to confusion. Many yoga teachers are rather rigid in their instructions of breathing (breath goes from bottom to top, or top to bottom, or is only in this style, or as heavy handed as counting the beats of one inhale, and one exhale). Suggesting that someone just observe breath can be a radical departure to being constantly instructed, but how revealing it can be! 

Notice for instance where your breath goes when you are experiencing an uncomfortable stretch somewhere in a pose. If you have tight hamstrings, this can be obvious. Usually—unless we are trained to be aware of this reaction—the breath will move as far away from a place of discomfort as possible. If your hamstrings are tight, your breath might be high up in your chest. Genetically, we are inclined to quickly remove ourselves from danger, and this is a very skillful habit to have. But, as in many types of patterned behavior that have become unconscious and unquestioned, this reaction is too easily triggered, often to no real benefit. The urge to run from danger or discomfort can turn into a habit of fleeing anything even remotely unpleasant. Our minds are so habitually prone to check out, to find a distraction, or search for something/anything to take away the pain or discomfort that we’ve taken the initially life-prolonging habit a bit too far, over-stressing our system and depleting our life force. 

In the body then, there can be vast areas that we no longer inhabit because of an injury (discomfort), a trauma (discomfort), or tightness (discomfort), and we don’t even recognize that these parts have become off limits energetically, mentally and physically. We avoid these places with both breath and mind, and when practicing a posture we subsequently explore the breath in certain areas while avoiding others. But as breath and mind ride together we have the opportunity to recognize the areas of the body we aren’t consciously connecting to. 

Direct Experience Exercise

Practice three different postures that you like and are relatively easy for you. Hold each pose for five to ten breaths. While in each posture pay close attention to your breath—where it is full and easy, where it isn’t. After each posture, reflect and note (either mentally or write it down) before moving on to the next pose. Eventually you may notice a pattern.

If noticing the areas into which your breath doesn’t flow is difficult, try breathing into the nooks and crannies of each posture, for instance, the inside rim of each hip, behind your heart, the right side of your ribs, your kidney area, or the bottom of your pelvic bowl. Be as inquisitive and investigative as possible.

Once you’ve noticed where you don’t breathe so easily, practice poses that open that area of your body, and gently, kindly begin breathing into those areas. Take your time and treat yourself as you would your best friend. If anything emotionally painful comes up, you could try practicing some gentle restorative poses or any other form of conscious relaxation to quiet your nervous system. And if you feel like you’d benefit from talking with someone about it, consider talking with a family member, a friend, or, if you have one, your spiritual teacher or therapist. The tissues of the body hold thoughts and emotions, and we all need support from time to time.

Jill Satterfield is the founder of Vajra Yoga + Meditation, a synthesis of yoga and Buddhism that combines meditation, yoga and contemplative practices. Named “one of the 4 leading yoga and Buddhist teachers in the country” by Shambhala Sun Magazine, Jill has instigated mindful and creative educational programs for over 28 years.

She is also the founder and Director of the School for Compassionate Action: Meditation, Yoga and Educational Support for Communities in Need, a not-for-profit that trains teachers, psychologists and health care providers to integrate mind and body practices into their professions. SCA also provides classes to people in chronic pain, with illness, those suffering from PTSD, and at-risk youth. Jill teaches workshops internationally, is a faculty member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center’s Mindfulness for Yoga Training  and the Somatic Training in Marin, California, and is a guest teacher for many other training programs. To find out more about Jill, visit her website vajrayoga.com.

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Your Key to Your Nervous System: Your Breath

by Nina

Tide Under First Bridge by Brad Gibson

NOTE: This post has information in it that has been corrected in a later post called Falling for Yoga Myths: Yawning and Sighing and Your Breath. Please read the later post after reading this one!

Have you ever wondered why you tend to yawn when you’re sleepy? Well, a yawn is a great big inhalation. And because your heart rate tends to speed up on your inhalation, that yawn in the middle of that boring lecture or business meeting is little message to your nervous system: wake up! On the other hand, when you are upset about something, you tend to sigh. That sigh—try one!—is an extra long exhalation. Because your heart rate tends to slow on your exhalation, that sigh while you are feeling emotional turmoil or are just stuck in traffic is a little message to your nervous system: take it easy, buddy, slow down a bit.

Your autonomic nervous system is the part of your nervous system that controls the functions of your body, such as digestion, heartbeat, blood pressure, and breathing, that are “involuntary,” meaning the functions that you don’t have to think about. The autonomic nervous system is also the part of your nervous system that sends you into stress mode (fight or flight) and that triggers the relaxation response. And while you cannot tell your nervous system directly to slow your heart beat, digest your food more quickly (that would be nice, wouldn’t it?), or to start relaxing right this minute, you can control your breath.

Think about it: even though you breathe without thinking about it, you can intentionally hold your breath, speed up your breath, slow down your breath, breathe through one nostril instead of the other, and so on. And this ability to alter your breathing is what gives you the key to your nervous system, providing you with some control over its “involuntary” functions.

In my post on the stress response (see "Chronic Stress: An Introduction"), I mentioned that in stress mode your body uses more oxygen (for fighting or fleeing) while in relaxation mode your body needs less oxygen (for resting and digesting). It turns out that by intentionally taking in more oxygen (either by speeding up your breath or by lengthening your inhalation) you can stimulate your nervous system and that by taking in less oxygen (by slowing your breath or lengthening your exhalation), you can calm yourself down. It’s that simple. (See "Stress Test" for my example of using breath practice to stay calm during oral surgery.)

Yogic breath practices have evolved over thousands of years as yogis experimented on themselves and passed on their discoveries their students. And while some schools of yoga teach yogic breath practices (pranayama) to beginners, the type of yoga that I’m trained in, Iyengar style, considers breath practices to be so powerful that pranayama is introduced very gradually.

We’ll be introducing some simple breath practices in the coming weeks, but until then start by tuning into your breath throughout the day. When you’re standing in a long line at the post office, fighting the crowds at the grocery store, or are stuck in traffic, are you taking quick breaths, deep breaths or sighing? When you’re taking a hot bubble bath, petting your dog, or chatting with your partner after a good dinner, are you taking slow breaths, shallow breaths, or—oops!—yawning?

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What I'd Say to Paul (Yoga for Insomnia)

by Nina

Paul Weston and his new therapist from "In Treatment"

There I was on Saturday night, doing that thing where you talk out loud to a fictional character on your TV screen. But, really, Paul Weston in Season 3 of “In Treatment” was asking his new therapist for another Ambien prescription. And when he told her that he’d been taking Ambien every night for over a year, I just lost it. I said, “That’s addiction, not a solution! You need to help him wean himself off the pills!” But his therapist wouldn’t listen to me. And then Paul told her that even with the pills he didn’t sleep through the night, but always woke from a nightmare after several hours, and then had trouble going back to sleep, often taking another Ambien to get himself through the second part of the night. He was worried that he might have Parkinson’s Disease. But even though I begged her to offer him an alternative, in the end his therapist wrote him another prescription and said he could come back and talk to her if he wished, so besides the pills all she had to offer him was long-term talk therapy.

Then on Sunday morning I was doing it again because I read an article in the NY Times “Sleep Medication: Mother’s New Little Helper” (see here) about mothers who can’t sleep because they are too stressed out about all the little things they had to do, and instead spend hours in the middle of the night fretting over their “To Do” lists. Both the author of the article and the women themselves seemed to think the only options these women had were sleeping pills or lack of sleep. “Conscious relaxation!” I shouted to the author and the women in the article, but to no avail. It is just part of being a mom these days, they claimed. Some of them even talked about how useful it was to have time to themselves in the middle of the night, when they could get even more work done. 

It’s a good thing I can rant in this post today! I do think sleeping pills can be useful on a short-term basis to get you through a short, difficult spell, but they are not a long-term solution because they do not solve the underlying problems (and you do, in fact, become addicted after just two weeks). If you read my first post on chronic stress (see here) you will know that what’s keeping both Paul and the women in the NY Times article from sleeping well is chronic stress. And a different solution to their insomnia could be practicing yoga stress management techniques. So what would I prescribe for Paul Weston?

During the afternoon or evening, Paul should practice calming yoga poses, such as restorative poses, supported forward bends or supported inversions (such as Legs Up the Wall Pose). Seated meditation is another good option for this time of day. If Paul can do Savavana or yoga nidra without falling asleep, these practices would also be effective, but taking a nap won’t be effective. The idea is for him to switch his nervous system from chronic stress to the relaxation response, providing him with time in a state of conscious relaxation. (See here for info on the difference between conscious relaxation and sleep.)

Then when Paul is in bed trying to fall asleep, I’d recommend either yogic breath awareness (or extending the exhalation) or a self-guided Savasana (such as progressive physical relaxation of different body parts) so that when he falls asleep he will be more relaxed (and will hopefully sleep deeper and longer). Even though he has important things to worry about, the key is to keep his mind on neutral subjects when he is going to sleep (he can always do his worrying the next day!). 

Finally, if Paul wakes in the middle of the night, rather than getting up and turning on the light to read a book, work on the computer, or watch TV (these activities are mildly stimulating), I’d recommend that Paul stay in bed in the dark, and again do a yogic breath practice or a self-guided Savasana. There is a good chance this will help him get back to sleep again. Granted, worrying is very tempting; in the middle of the night it feels like important work. But like any other practice, moving the mind away from worry to a more neutral subject gets easier and easier with experience. 

“Paul,” I’d say, “I’ve been there, too. And these are all practices that have helped me learn to sleep better, even during stressful times.”

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Stress Test

by Nina

Under the Beach Umbrella by Joan Webster 

“You did great,” my oral surgeon said. “In fact, you were the most relaxed patient I’ve ever worked on. You even fell asleep there for a while.”

“Wasn’t asleep,” I mumbled through my numb and swollen lips. “Was doing yogic breathing.”

He looked at me with fascination, then quickly handed me a piece of paper and a pen. “Could you write down what you did for me?”

“Uh, email you later?”

Of course I didn’t become so good at yogic breathing just so I could stay, uh, relatively relaxed during gum surgery (though it was certainly an interesting test of my skills). As someone who once suffered from agitated depression, I’ve been using yogic breathing, along with many yoga techniques, for many years to manage my stress levels for my emotional wellbeing.

Now it turns out that I’ve been practicing yoga for healthy aging while I was at it. Because I can tell you right now that along with exercise and diet, stress management is one of the most important keys to healthy aging. Chronic stress contributes to many common age-related diseases, such as high blood pressure and heart disease, and can cause a weakened immune system overall. It also affects the quality of your life. Possible effects of chronic stress include: chronic anxiety or depression, insomnia and/or fatigue, headaches, and digestive disorders.

And how does yoga help you manage your stress? Let me count the ways:

• breath practices and meditation trigger the relaxation response 
• inverted poses (and semi-inverted poses) physically reduce your stress levels 
• restorative yoga poses relax your body and quiet your nervous system
• active yoga poses (such as standing poses, twists, and backbends) release stress from your body and create a focus for your mind
• yoga philosophy teaches you to cultivate equanimity in the face of difficulty

Over time, I’ll be providing detailed information and instructions for techniques in each of these different categories. And I hope very much that you’ll find one or more that’s useful.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I did eventually email my oral surgeon. Next time you’re in a dentist chair (or are lying sleepless in bed, need a break after a stressful day, or just want to experiment), maybe you can try:

Breath awareness. Focus your attention on your natural breath, observing how your abdomen or chest rises with your inhalation and falls with your exhalation. When your mind wanders from your breath (to the dental procedure or any other topic), simply, and without judgment, return your attention to your breath. It is natural to be distracted from this practice, but it seems to work even if your attention wanders repeatedly.

Focusing on your breath will enable you to keep your mind of neutral topics rather than stressful ones, and after 10 or 20 minutes, the relaxation response (identified by Dr. Herbert Bensen of Harvard Medical School in the 1970s) will be triggered. 

Extending the Exhalation. The heart slows during the exhalation (and speeds up during the inhalation) so extending your exhalation is a relaxing breath practice (and also provides the benefits of breath awareness above). Take a deep soft inhalation followed by a deep soft exhalation. At the end of the exhalation, instead of inhaling again, retain your exhalation for one or two beats. Repeat through the procedure. Keep it easy. At no time should there be strain. If needed, return to your natural breath at any time. 

During my procedure I did the second breath practice (extending the exhalation). But I’m very experienced with yogic breathing, and we generally recommend that beginners to start with simple breath awareness. 

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